The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Monday that it would begin imposing preliminary anti-dumping duties on softwood lumber from Canada which, it claims, is sold in the United States at less than fair value.

The Department calculated preliminary preliminary dumping margins ranging from 4.59 to 7.72 percent for four mandatory respondents and a preliminary dumping margin of 6.87 percent for all other producers and exporters of softwood lumber from Canada.

As a result of this preliminary affirmative determination, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be instructed to require cash deposits based on the preliminary rates.

This announcement comes on top of the April decision against Canadian softwood lumber producers, when the Department calculated preliminary countervailing duties for five Canadian exporters at rates from 3.02 percent to 24.12 percent and established a preliminary rate of 19.88 percent for all other exporters in Canada.

In its Monday decision the Commerce Department exempted lumber from some Atlantic provinces. The Department preliminary determined that certain softwood lumber products certified by the Atlantic Lumber Board (ALB) as being first produced in the Provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Prince Edward Island from logs harvested in these three provinces should be excluded from the scope of the anti-dumping investigation, as well as the countervailing duty investigation.